MOA Opens Application Period for Small Business Stabilization Fund
The Municipality of Anchorage has opened a second round of CARES Act dollars for small businesses impacted by COVID-19. The application period opened August 26 and closes at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, 2020. The Anchorage Assembly authorized $5 million for the program, and recipients will be given a $10,000 grant that may be used for payroll, employee benefits, rent, utilities, and payments to vendors. Applications can be found on the Cook Inlet Lending Center (CILC) website. CILC will process and distribute the funds.
Eligible small businesses are those economically impacted by COVID-19, and:
- had less than $1 million in gross revenue in 2019;
- had no more than twenty total full-time or part-time employees at any one time in 2019; and
- are located in the Municipality of Anchorage.
Sole proprietors and owners of single member LLCs and S-Corps with only one shareholder must make 75 percent of their annual gross income from the business to be eligible. Franchises, payday lenders, pawn shops, bingo halls, pull tab businesses, and businesses legally restricted to patrons over age 18 or 21 are not eligible to apply.
Current Issue
April 2024
This grant opportunity follows the first round that awarded $1 million to small businesses and nonprofits and has been modified based on community feedback. Those changes include:
- Increasing the number of employees in eligible businesses from seven to twenty.
- No prohibition on having applied for or received other government relief funds.
- No cap on the number of awards to sole proprietorships; sole proprietorships are eligible to receive the same amount of funding as other business types.
- Nonprofits are not eligible for this funding. Additional relief funding for nonprofits has been authorized by the Anchorage Assembly and will be administered separately.
To expedite the distribution of funds, businesses that are on the waitlist from the first round will be prioritized, and sole proprietorships that received $5,000 during the first round will receive an additional $5,000 grant to make their award equal to the awards received by similarly-sized businesses. These businesses will be required to submit additional information to opt-in to this round of funding, and CILC will contact them via email to initiate that process.
Applications can be submitted online, or mailed to 3600 Spenard Road, Suite 100, Anchorage, AK 99508, or dropped off to a secure drop-box at that location. Applications will be available in Spanish, Tagalog, Samoan, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese Mandarin. More information can be found on the CILC website.
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